Since the late 2010s, China has shown a growing sensitivity to the negative effects of its distant-water fishing ( DWF ) growth, as well as the reputational damage that some international environmental advocates have caused.
DWF describes nations that seafood outside their own borders and expand their range of activities to the financial exclusive areas or high seas of other nations.
Was China’s hyperbolic DWF development always a direct result of Beijing’s great strategy to create what’s known as a “blue economy” and became a maritime power? What are China’s major obstacles to halting this progress, exactly?
In an article published in Marine Policy, I want to examine the pivotal part of Chinese regions in driving this growth and change the state-centric view on China’s rapidly expanding DWF.
Municipal versions
Not all of China’s southern counties are extremely interested in expanding their DWF sector. Between 2010 and 2020, Liaoning, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian and the China National Agricultural Development Group Co. Ltd. played a significant role in boosting China’s DWF pursuits, as measured by the number of vessels, power and fish get.
These institutions collectively owned 84 percent of China’s DWF vessels as of 2020, and they combined foresaw a complete power of 86.6 % of the total horsepower for all other Chinese DWF vessels. Additionally, their catch made up 87 percent of the total fat and 86.8 % of the total value of China’s DWF find.
Fujian was the state where the highest returns on investment in catch fish were found in Fujian. It didn’t have the most powerful DWF fleet ( Zhejiang did ) or the largest DWF fleet ( Shandong did ). However, it was only next to Shandong in terms of capture value per vessel and full DWF catch volume, which was both second.
Strategic Fujian
Fujian was not immediately selected as a captain province for the development of the marine economy in 2010, but it soon established what is known as a leading small group, led by the provincial governor, to renew.
In 2011, this endeavor was successful, giving Fujian more managerial and budgetary authority to grow its marine economy. To improve coordination and conformity across administrative levels, sub-provincial leading little groups were also established.
When Fujian’s sea business development gained national significance, it rapidly expanded its DWF industry. The municipal authorities urged attempts to” float to the Western Ocean for the next time” in the year 2013. Regional businesses seized this chance to gain help from their provincial counterparts.
Starting in 2014, the provincial government promoted targeted plan incentives across the company’s value chain: vehicle construction, access to angling grounds, business operations and human resources. The development of the Maritime Silk Road was further aided by Fujian’s participation in the developing of the Maritime Silk Road in 2015.
These steps led to a production-focused, extraction-driven DWF progress in Fujian. From 2012 to 2015, the number of Fujian’s DWF arteries and get rose by 78 per cent and 50 per cent, substantially exceeding national goals of 15.5 per share and 18 per cent.
Reining in growth
Since 2016, amid heightened international scrutiny, Beijing started to recentralize and tighten control over China’s DWF fleet. However, this work was slow to come down to the local level. The province’s DWF growth was aided by the Fujian incentive measures, which remained in place until 2018.
Beijing began putting forth concrete centralized policies to halt DWF growth toward the end of the decade. These included a blacklist for vessels and captains involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated ( IUU) fishing, a compliance ranking for DWF companies and revisions to China’s DWF regulations.
Fujian appeared to follow Beijing’s plan to slow down fleet growth, but it made a different move to make it easier to establish a national DWF base on its coast. This type of terraqueous infrastructure seeks to reorganize spaces that connect land and sea. The objective is to shorten the time it takes to sell DWF catch as commodities and increase its commercial value.
Information-gathering challenges
Beijing’s delegation of some administrative and fiscal authority to local governments is crucial to boosting the provinces ‘ economic performance. However, local governments may be motivated by economic interests to pursue policies that lead to exaggerated growth and have unintended foreign policy effects on China.
Fujian’s incentive policies suggest a firm commitment to a DWF growth model focused on enhancing capacities, maximizing outputs and boosting production. These policies don’t take into account potential environmental repercussions beyond its borders.
A performance evaluation report on Fujian’s special subsidy fund for marine economic development praises the shift in Fujianese fishermen from offshore fishing close to its coast to distant-water fishing.
It says there are” social” and “environmental” benefits that include supplying more DWF professionals and easing offshore over-fishing. The report doesn’t mention potential concerns about overcapacity or the ensuing environmental and foreign policy issues.
Measures taken by Beijing during the 13th Five-Year Planning Period in 2017 marked a first step toward recentralizing control and oversight over such provincial activism. Beijing faces a challenging task when monitoring DWF because its environmental effects are not directly borne by Chinese citizens and occur outside of China.
Looking ahead
China’s 2023 White Paper on DWF reaffirms efforts to improve information-gathering and monitoring on DWF fleet capacities and operations. These include expanding the national fisheries observer program and creating an inclusive DWF data collection framework.
Beijing says the West is” strongly suppressing and restricting” China’s DWF, but the white paper supports dialogue with international non-governmental organizations regarding sustainable fisheries management and measures against IUU fishing. In other words, it acknowledges the importance of global bottom-up monitoring in resolving Beijing’s perennial issue with obtaining information on DWF.
Since China replaced the DWF fuel subsidy with the international compliance capacity enhancement subsidy in 2021, improving information-gathering and verification regarding any violations of both domestic and international regulations by Chinese DWF vessels has become important.
This new subsidy is in part related to DWF enterprise compliance scores. Each year, these scores are released by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. Any of the 14 DWF-regulated violations leads to lower scores, which in turn reduces the subsidy amount for offending enterprises.
Therefore, prompt and trustworthy information on IUU breaches is necessary to achieve the desired deterrent effect. Beijing should encourage and support its efforts to monitor and maintain the transparency and monitoring efforts of fisheries NGOs, as well as to maintain their ongoing collaboration with regional and international fisheries organizations.
Hang Zhou is a graduate student at Université Laval and an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science.
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